Importer tips on field formatting

Blank input will be treated as unchecked. No representations of boolean true (such as yes, 1, TRUE, true, or True) will work.

Currency

5

5.5

5.50

0

-5

Cannot contain any currency symbols (neither before or after). Only positive and negative numbers with two decimals (max). Zero is allowable.

Date

8-5-2004

8.5.2004

8/5/2004

8/5/04

8-5-04

8.5.04

Note that the importer uses the Month order for date fields preference to determine how to parse date strings. Depending on the value of that preference, 8-5-2004 could either evaluate to August 5, 2004 or May 8, 2004.

Dropping the year implies the current year. All of the following would be interpreted as May 8 of the current year:

8.5

8/5

8-5

Datetime

8-5-2004 3:33am

8-5-2004 3:33

8-5-2004 3:33 AM

Importing datetime fields follows all of the rules of date fields, but in addition, you can insert a time string. The AM and PM portion of the time string is not case-sensitive. Omitting the AM and PM from a time string results in the time being treated as AM. If the time string is omitted altogether, the time will default to 12:00 AM of the supplied date.

Duration

Days

4 d

4 day

4 days

Minutes and hours

4 m

4 min

4 h

4 hr

4 hours

Entity

SEQ_001A

To include a single entity field in an import, such as Shot > Sequence, specify the Sequence code (name). Because you must always use the linked entity's code (name) in the import—and not its ID—there's a chance that the code will be non-unique. In other words, SEQ_0001A might point to three sequences in the same project. If that happens, the importer will not assume you've made a mistake, and will simply link it to the first sequence with the code SEQ_0001A.

Multi-Entity

TST001,TST002,TST003

To include a multi-entity field in an import, such as a multi-entity Link field, always be sure to separate the data points with a single comma only ',' (no other spaces or characters). If you have additional spaces or characters between data points, only the first value of the field will be recognized when you import your spreadsheet into Shotgun.

Correct: TST001,TST002,TST003Incorrect: TST001, TST002, TST003

(In the Incorrect example, only 'TST001' would be present in the field upon import as there are spaces being used with the commas)

Float

0

1

-1

99999999.999999

Maximum precision is six decimal places. No commas allowed. Largest value is 999,999,999,999.999878.

File/Link

These fields cannot be imported, and are greyed out (automatically ignored) by the importer.

List

pink

Pink

PINK

PinK

All list fields with the exception of Task > Color are case sensitive.

Number

-999999999

0

1

999999999

Largest value for this field type is 999,999,999.

Percent

93

93.0

93.9

All percentage values must be entered without the formatting '%' character, and can contain decimal portions.Note that imported values of 93, 93.0, and 93.9 all show up in the UI as 93%, but the decimal portion is stored in the database (e.g., 93.9 is stored as 93.9 even though it displays as 93%). The value .93 would be treated as .93%, and shows up in the UI as .93%.

Status List

All status list values must be imported, using the short code (e.g., omt for Omit). To find out which short codes your Shotgun instance recognizes as legal allowable values, go through the following steps:

Go to a list page that displays the Status field you're trying to import. For example, go to an Assets page that displays the Status field.

Right-click on the Status header, and then choose Configure Field...

Note all of the checked statuses enabled for this field (these indicate the allowable values that the field can hold).

Next to each checkbox is a staus icon, followed by the short code, and the human-readable name.

Text

With the exception of Entity code identifiers (such as Shot code and Asset Name), there is no character limit to text fields. However, if any of your text fields contain quotes, this can cause problems with the importer's ability to discern where a row stops and another begins. This is simply the drawback of handling data that is pasted, rather than parsing an uploaded CSV file.

Known example that confuses the importer:

5'11"

One client was attempting to import a column that recorded dimensions (in feet and inches), and reported a problem with the importer mishandling the alignment of columns and cells. The reason that this happens is that text like 5'11" isn't itself enclosed in quotes, so the importer has no way of distinguishing between the termination of a row and character data.

Recommended workaround of the quote issue

Do a find and replace in your spreadsheet application, turning quotes into its equivalent html entity: